Structure of a Form

Definition

A form consists of pages, output areas, addresses, graphics (such as images), and data or text contents. Within an output area, you can use static or dynamic tables to display data or texts in lines, columns, or cells. To further structure and format text and data, use paragraphs with the paragraph and character formats.

SAP calls output areas "windows". You can position windows freely on a page.

Example of a Form Structure

We use a simple invoice in which the flight bookings of certain customers are displayed with prices in a table in a window. The invoice also contains other windows for the company logo, the sender address, the customer address, company-specific data (clerk, customer number, reference, date, and so on), bank data, and pagination.

The first page displays the customer general information, followed by a table containing the flight bookings of that customer. The output length of the table depends on the number of booking items (dynamic table). The table header contains the column headings, the table footer contains the total. If the space on the first page is not sufficient to display all items, the table continues to display on the next page, thereby repeating the column headings. In addition, the first page contains:

• The company logo inserted as graphic in bitmap format.
• The customer address. This address appears only on the first page (for the window in the envelope) and is preceded by the sender address in small font.
• A window containing company-related data in several fonts and font sizes (invoice, clerk, phone/fax, reference, customer number, date).
• The footer containing the company and bank data.

The second page contains the current page number and the total number of pages in the document.